INDIAN RAILWAYS IN OLD DAYS DURING THE BRITISH RAJ - PART-I

 The Railways and their Services

The British were sure that they would probably govern India forever, hence the British-Indian Railway companies in the early days of the Raj invested heavily in India with the latest locomotives and equipment and by laying and expanding lines everywhere. In fact, the Railways were a way of life for them, whereas, in Independent India after 1947, the British Government left behind a dilapidated, run down and accident prone network with aging locomotives, rolling stock and infrastructure with a rusting and decaying track system. This happened because due to the independence movement gaining steam, investments started drying up after 1930. There is thus a marked difference between the Railways in British India and the Railways in Independent India after 1947.

It used to be commented by the people having experience of Rail Travel in England that the facilities available on trains in India in those days were better than even those in England ! There is a write up by Mr. Ken Staynor published in the IRFCA (Indian Railway Fan Club) website in 2015, wherein he says that he arrived as a young lad at Bombay from UK in August 1931 and travelled some one thousand two hundred miles from Victoria Terminus of the Great Indian Peninsula Railway to Dhanbad on the East Indian Railway, where his grandfather was serving as Yardmaster. He got flabbergasted with the privacy of the spacious and airy First Class compartments due to the absence of corridors, since till then he was familiar only with the trains of the Southern Railway in England with their corridor trains and similar trains in Europe.

The Britishers started constructing railways to and at all corners of the-then Indian Sub-Continent (from Baluchistan to present Bangladesh) and giving grand sounding names to them. Great Indian Peninsula Railway (GIPR) was the first railway, closely followed by the East Indian Railway (EIR). Details of these are given as follows:

•         Great Indian Peninsula Railway (GIPR) was covering the Central Provinces.

•         East Indian Railway (EIR) was covering the Gangestic Plain and Northern India known as the United Provinces (UP) at that time.

•         North Western Railway (NWR) was the largest Railway system of India covering The Punjab, Sind, Baluchistan and the North West Frontier Provinces. After Independence, - the greater part of this railway went to Pakistan.

•         Bengal & North Western Railway (BNWR) and The Rohilkhand & Kumaon Railway was a large Metre gauge railway system running north of the Ganges and across the United Provinces. These two railways were amalgamated in 1945 to be known as Oudh & Tirhut Railway.

•        Bengal Nagpur Railway (BNR) serving the east coast between Calcutta and Madras as well as the Nagpur and the vast mineral districts of the Chota Nagpur area. It also served the industrial area of the Damodar Valley jointly with EIR. BNR was meant originally to connect the rich mineral sources of Nagpur District with the industry growing up in the Asansol area, hence this was the BNR's first main line. BNR had an end-on junction at Waltair to connect with the Madras & Southern Maharatta Railway noted next. BNR did not reach Calcutta until 1905.

•         Madras & Southern Maharatta Railway and the South Indian Railway for serving the Southern India.

•        Bombay Baroda & Central India Railway (BBCIR) having an extensive Broad gauge and Metre gauge network serving Gujarat, Rajputana (Rajasthan) and Central India.

•         Bengal Assam Railway (BAR) for serving Bengal and Assam, as the name signifies.

In addition to these, there were quite a few private railways belonging to the Rulers of the States. A few of them are shown here as follows:

Nizam's State Railway (NSR) - Both BG & MG system – for The Deccan

Mysore State Railway (MSR)

Jodhpur Railway, Bikaner State Railway, Jaipur State Railway and the Gaekwads Baroda State Railway.

Some Special Trains vis-à-vis some notable events about the Trains

(a)      Frontier Mail of BBCIR from Bombay to Peshawar - it was like the Orient Express of Europe. It was the first train in India to have air-conditioning in 1928.

(b)      Toofan Express of the EIR, which was a most popular fast train between Calcutta and Delhi in those days having daily Restaurant car. Today it is just a skeleton of its predecessor. Airconditioned Coaches were introduced in this train in 1930.

(c)      Howrah -Delhi-Kalka Mail of EIR was a premier train once upon a time in all India, in which Air conditioned Coaches were introduced in 1930.

(d)      The Darjeeling Mail was one of the finest trains of EIR.

The most prestigious and luxurious train to ever run in India during the Raj was “The Indian Imperial Mail”-  a joint venture by EIR and GIPR , which was introduced solely to carry the Brittishers - coming from UK by Ships to the Bombay Port, to Calcutta and similarly Return. Accordingly, the timings of this Train was commensurate to the berthing times at Ballard Pier in Bombay. It carried only the first class passengers. Following the outbreak of World War II, this train ceased to run since air conditioning system was also introduced in Calcutta-Bombay mail of BNR by that time.